Atheist Memes We Need To Throw In the Trash

[newcriminal]

March 6, 2018
by Shem the Penman

Memes are the lowest form of argument. Sometimes, however, they’re the medium of our discourse, so the bite-sized bits of our thinking that they represent should at least be in the ball park. I’m going to look at three memes that I think misrepresent freethought and critical thinking.

A Thought Experiment With No Thought



Penn Jillette is a great magician, but even he can’t make an agenda disappear. Saying science is better than religion isn’t saying much, but let’s not make science seem like something it’s not.

- snip -

The Facts About Facts

Come on. Belief or lack thereof is more a function of personality, or the bonds you formed (or didn’t) with the faith community in which you grew up. Some people are more comfortable with the prospect of making a Type I error rather than a Type II error. The idea that the foundation of our worldview is nothing more than data processing, and everyone would come to the same correct conclusion if they really thought about it, is something that panders to our self-image as rational decision-makers but isn’t accurate. There are plenty of emotional needs in play when we talk about religious belief as well as the lack thereof, and we’ve all just learned to rationalize beliefs we didn’t arrive at through rational means.

- snip -

Exploiting the Suffering of the Innocent



There’s so much wrong with this meme I don’t know where to start. Let’s begin by admitting that, on the spectrum of sophistication for arguments, bad-things-happen-therefore-God-doesn’t-exist is on the crude end. I honestly couldn’t care less about theological discussions, but if you’re going to talk about religion and suffering, then you’re obliged to recognize that the matter has been addressed more than a few times by theologians.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/driventoabstraction/2018/03/memes-throw-trash/

[yallerdawg]

1. Is it possible?

We're looking at three Atheistic Apologetics ( "defense of faith" ) memes/platitudes!

Yes - it sure does look the same, doesn't it?

[newcriminal]

2. Well, they are three self-professed atheists promoting platitudes

who are being rebuffed by a fourth.

[yallerdawg]

3. This just sounds so familiar as a critique, a defense and an understanding - of religious belief.

The development of modern scientific inquiry took place in a certain historical and cultural context. I keep saying that it’s not like we discovered the scientific method like mountaineers discovered snow-capped mountains in equatorial Africa. Just like the art or language of that era, science is a creation of its time.

Science was developed by men in a very male-centric culture. Europe at the time was developing colonial empires. Thus, science had to reflect the influence of a mindset where domination and control were all-important. The obsessions with making measurements and relevant distinctions derived from a political and economic context where quantification, division and the establishment of borders were crucial to society. Technology had developed to a point where men could make observations of celestial bodies or microorganisms that weren’t detectable by the human eye, so the entire concept of observation itself needed to be revised. A civilization interested in racial and gender hierarchies naturally created such orders and hierarchies in elements, living things and even among scientific disciplines. And a society whose foundation was authority had a vested interest in creating a mode of empirical research that was unquestionable.

The similarity is really astounding!

[newcriminal]

5. It didn't jump out at me at first but it is eerie.

[MineralMan]

4. Thrown in the trash, eh?

That sort of flies in the face of our tradition of free expression here in the United States, I think. Penn Jillete's statement, combined with a photo, is obviously his opinion about the matter. That someone has turned it into a visual meme is another choice of expression. Posting such a meme on an Internet venue is yet another choice of someone who wishes to express something.

Memes of all types are simplistic, of course. They rarely express an opinion in a convincing way, I think. But, to say that all of them should be "thrown in the trash" is ridiculous and borders on being a censorship issue.

Memes represent ideas and opinions. Whether such ideas or opinions are expressed well or poorly is not the measure that should be applied to whether they should be allowed or not. I disagree with many such memes, but recognize that people sometimes express their opinions through that medium. I might criticize such a meme or argue against the opinion it represents, but I would never suggest that such memes should be trashed or disallowed.

[newcriminal]

6. Actually, he's not suggesting that "all of them" be thrown in the trash. Just these three.

In truth I doubt he's literally saying any should be thrown in the trash. He is suggesting their use be eschewed. He is exercising his opinion as well.

[MineralMan]

7. It's futile. Memes have become the mode du jour for presenting

ideas, it seems. Every meme will annoy someone, most likely. Sometimes, that's the goal, I'm sure.

I don't do memes.

[newcriminal]

13. Memes have the effect of hiding ideas, not presenti g them.

[MineralMan]

14. Hmm...I don't think so.

However, what on Earth prompted you to write about memes today?

[newcriminal]

16. Check the dateline.

Fox News constantly tries to dominate news with memes.

[ExciteBike66]

8. The article itself falls victim to the "meme" level of argument

This article made me laugh. The point is that memes are not fully thought-out, totally convincing arguments, which is true. Then the article tries to make points about said memes without any kind of back-up whatsoever. The article states that theologians have argued about why a certain god allows starvation, but doesn't actually include any of said arguments. Internet articles are cursed with having to fit within a certain attention-span, and thus are almost as bad as memes when it comes to making decent arguments.

As to science being re-created, the article is way off-base from what Jillette appears to be saying. Jillette is not saying that science would be developed in the exact same way, he is saying that the scientific knowledge we have would be the same. For instance, though the methods or experiments might be different, the atomic weight of a given atom would still be the same. Or the distance from the earth to the sun would still be the same, regardless of how long it took to figure it out again, or what methods were used, or what mistakes were made. The point is that physical data would still be physical data, it would just need re-discovering.

As to the starving kids, it is really quite rich to be taken to task for using their image to denigrate a given god. Most normal people (myself included) do not have the resources to feed 17,000 kids each day, so the fact that we are not solving the problem isn't really our fault. We do what we can with our political power to elect governments that will help solve these issues. On the other hand, if an omnipresent god actually existed, it would certainly be a valid critique to point out that that god is capable to allowing such suffering to continue.

[Cartoonist]

9. So what's the problem

Penn is 100% correct. Perhaps you don't understand what he's saying. There is supposedly only one god, yet there are thousands of god cults. There is only one law of gravity. There is only one speed of light. And so on.

Belief or lack thereof is more a function of personality
-
This bit of completely unsubstantiated nonsense should only be laughed at. The "lack thereof " is due to a lack of facts. You know, proof of god's existence.

Suffering.
You can't have it both ways. Either you believe in a loving god or a hideous monster. Just don't tell me Jesus loves me while he turns his back on those kids.

[DetlefK]

10. It would be nice if "Shem the Penman" actually knew something about science.

If Shem knew a thing or two about science, or if he had bothered to ask someone who has a broad knowledge of many fields of science, he would have found that different fields of science connect to each other like puzzle-pieces.

Different scientific disciplines and fields of study overlap: newtonian mechanics, quantum-mechanics, relativity, electrodynamics, electronics, gas and fluid-dynamics, solid-state physics, chemistry, engineering... If you add mathematics, we can go from theoretical physics to mathematics to logic to philosophy.
You can seamlessly walk from one end of science to the other, because two disciplines lead to the same answer if they are both in charge of a problem.

You cannot do that with religion:
Is it one god or many?
Flawed characters like the greek gods or omniscient like the christian god?
Mortal like the norse gods or eternal like the christian god?
Character-development over time like the norse gods or unchanging like the christian god?
How many souls does a person have? In Ancient Egypt it's 5, in Christianity it's 1. The norse and greek religion did not even have the concept of a soul.



That's what Penn Jilette was saying: The various parts of religion give wildly different answers when exposed to one and the same problem.

[trotsky]

12. Pretty embarrassing that the same people who are offended by that meme...

are the very ones who don't understand it.

[trotsky]

11. Looks like you've still got your same Google alerts set up.

How... original.

[newcriminal]

15. You haven't gotten any new talking points.

[AtheistCrusader]

18. When you're opponent is using 2,000+ year old arguments, you don't have to move much.

Basically anything newer than Germ Theory will do.

[NeoGreen]

19. Plus, they're not really arguments...

...they're really nothing more robust than a collection of memes:

The meme of salvation
the meme of transubstantiation...ad nauseam

[newcriminal]

21. Oh,wait, you're the one that runs a meme contest.

Here's my entry.



Let me know if I win.

[NeoGreen]

23. Wow...

...offensive and missing the point from the get go...

But on the plus side, thanks for noticing, and you get points...just...for...trying...

[MineralMan]

24. That is a disgusting post, newcriminal.

What was your point in putting that here?

[trotsky]

29. I guess his point was to show he's learned nothing from being FFRed...

and now just one post from having his wife's account FFRed.

[MineralMan]

30. Oh, well...

So unnecessary, too. Posts like that one are clearly intended to be a poke in people's eyes. I hope someone grabs a screen shot of his parting message this time.

[Mariana]

41. ...

[url]v[/url]

[newcriminal]

20. That would be true if the Bible is a textbook on microbiology.

Hint: it's not.

[AtheistCrusader]

26. In case you have trouble paying attention, I was using that as a demarcation of time, not

subject matter.

Do try and keep up.

[trotsky]

27. So you're not even pretending anymore, eh?

Aren't you just a peach.

[newcriminal]

31. Not at all. I see genuine talking points.

[trotsky]

32. And I see someone breaking DU rules by using someone else's account to circumvent being FFRed.

But I guess as a good Christian, you can always just be forgiven no matter what you do.

Note to jury called likely to be called for this post - here's the proof:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=274567

[newcriminal]

33. And I see someone swimming in meta outside the SoP.

Next time reply with something on topic.

[trotsky]

34. That you of all people think you can keep accusing others of going "meta"...

says all that anyone needs to know about you, rug.

You have zero moral credibility because of your deceit and rulebreaking.

PROOF FOR JURY: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=274567

[Cuthbert Allgood]

36. What about Terms of Service violations?

PROOF FOR JURY: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=274567

[MineralMan]

37. That screen name will no longer be able to answer questions.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

39. Somehow that doesn't make me sad.

[MineralMan]

40. Well, the inevitability of it seemed clear enough.

And now, we resume our regular programming...

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Jillette's quote is good, and works fine.

I'd personally avoid using him as an example though, as he is a randroid.

But the objection in the linked article is complete bunk.

[newcriminal]

22. So is Penn.

How about that?

[AtheistCrusader]

25. I don't give a shit.

He's a comedian. Who cares. That does give him some philosophical chops, in the vein of the successful motley fool/court jester. But, not my circus, not my monkey.

[Old Enough 2]

28. Religion Created By Uninformed Men/Women

If it hasn't been noticed every religion on earth has been created by men/woman looking for an answer to creation. Where do we come from? Where are we going? etc. The so called three great religions are religions revealed to someone through Divine Revelation....god spoke to them in a trance, a dream or altered state of mind via drugs, psychosis or some other mental aberration. Note Well, god has never addressed millions of people in the public arena in all his specteral glory. If he did people would not need faith they would have hard verifible proof. Faith is belief in the unverifiable, belief in colorless smoke.

Science deals with hard facts and ideas which are subject to verification and proof. If need be science can and will be revised to conform to updated facts.

[SidDithers]

35. ...

Sid

[MineralMan]

38. I'm afraid you will receive no reply.

The person to whom you replied is no longer able to post.